Equity + Health Connection
What You Can Expect
from Richmond Memorial Health Foundation
Corkboard covered with word Respect and multiple wooden letters.
A Letter to Our Partners
from President & CEO Mark Constantine:

Earlier this month, the RMHF team met with long-term partners whose organizations have provided critical health services to our region for many decades. 

The conversation that unfolded that afternoon highlighted two interrelated truths:

  • Uncertainty and change have become the landscape that leaders find themselves navigating in 2017.
  • Clear, consistent, respectful and transparent communication is the key to healthy relationships.

As RMHF lives into our mission of fostering an equitable and healthy Richmond Region and the values that Trustees adopted last year, we want to honor our commitment to transparency and share with our partners what you can expect from us over the next six months.

Click here to continue reading Mark's letter.
Poet writer literature idea. Old book book of poems and a feather.
We are asking all 18 Equity + Health Fellows to share their insights as they work together to consider how RMHF can best pursue an equitable and healthy Richmond Region. Our guest writer this month is Yvette Johnson-Threat, Chief Medical Officer, Bon Secours Richmond Health System, who shared this beautiful poem celebrating the work of the Fellows:

We are the 18

We are the 18 committed to change and the restoration of hope.

We are the 18 with a commitment to Greater Richmond, our home.

We bring our diverse talents and backgrounds to tackle the task at hand.

To strategize to achieve health equity, and spread our learning across the land.

The work is hard and the discussion uncomfortable

But we,  the 18 are a group that is formidable.

Among us there is neither pretense nor polite platitudes 

There is only our honest presence with a positive attitude.

 

We work together and learn from each other

Questioning and reading the knowledge we uncover.

We are the 18 and we are committed to health equity

We will design a path to social justice and parity

We the 18 are the pioneers

RMHF depends on to demonstrate ideals they hold dear

 

When we are at this journey’s end

We pause and reflect within

We return to our institutions with a new mandate

To look internally and be the change agent

Only then can our goal we achieve

And show the world what we believe

We are the 18


To read more of the Fellows' essays and poetry, click here.

A Sense of Urgency
The Equity + Health Fellows are entering the final, crucial stretch of their work this month as they prepare recommendations on how to shape and implement RMHF's goals for pursuing equity and health in the coming years. We asked Saphira Baker, co-facilitator of the Fellowships program and Principal for Communitas Consulting, to give us a progress report and her impressions of the work to date.

1. Can you start by telling us the goal of the Equity + Health Fellowships program?

The Fellowship has at least two goals – to advise the Foundation on where it can have the greatest impact in fostering health equity in the region, and to open up RMHF to new perspectives and voices. By engaging Fellows as strategic advisors, the RMHF board and CEO are modeling a more participatory way of working with community partners than the traditional funder-grantee relationship. Both parties can learn and do a lot more together than they would on their own.

2. What are the responsibilities and key questions facing the Fellows?


The Fellows are charged with recommending an Equity and Health Agenda for RMHF. I anticipate that the end product will have recommendations for four or five priorities over the next five years.  Some of the questions Fellows have been deliberating recently are: How can a small to mid-size health care foundation best support its partners given the local, state and federal policy environment? What structures can organizations adopt to achieve greater racial equity and inclusion in their governance and hiring practices? They’ve answered a lot of questions as well, including defining health equity and sharing their own values and vision driving the work.

3. What is your role as a facilitator?


With my co-facilitator, David Campt, our first role is to draw out the expertise in the room, and to create a forum where everyone gains a common foundation of knowledge -- in this case, on the social determinants of health, innovative philanthropic practices, regional needs and assets, and ways of addressing structural inequities with regard to race. 

Our second role is to design and facilitate a process at each session that allows for deliberation, and gets the group to naming and owning priorities.  What we’ve learned is that this group of Fellows also wants to take this information back to their own organizations, and continue to work together, so we’ve added in time during the sessions to help build those relationships.

4. The Fellows have been quite active outside of the main convenings of the group. What’s been happening in these smaller gatherings?


We have been fortunate that Fellows have been willing to meet in small groups to accelerate the collective work, and their productivity and passion has been amazing. I’ve facilitated small groups that defined health equity, drafted a vision, created an outline for the final report and designed an interactive session for all 18 Fellows.  RMHF invited Fellows in to inform their community engagement strategy and to take part in presentations on Invest Health.  Two of the Fellows hosted dinners at their homes to discuss reading assignments and get to know each other better, and several have written essays about their experience.

5. There is so much happening at the federal, state, and regional levels related to equity and health. Have those external forces had an impact on the direction of the Fellows’ deliberations?


Yes. The Fellows come to the table with a sense of urgency for action. One of the sessions we held was with Glenn Harris of the Center for Social Inclusion, whose work began in Seattle working with the local government to dismantle structural racism.  He shared a belief that many of the most impactful policies begin at the local level, and are often proven and piloted in localities before being adopted by national players – whether they be corporations, philanthropies or governments. He encouraged the Fellows to think boldly and set the mold.  Another speaker, Dr. John Moeser of the University of Richmond, urged the group to run for office!

My goal is that Fellows leave re-energized, with an even greater sense of purpose and the importance of their work and contribution.

6. Can you share with us the progress that the E+H Fellows have made so far?


It is still early on, and lots can change in the final two sessions.  Stay tuned! Themes that have been consistent throughout our time together are encouraging greater equity and inclusion in nonprofit governance and hiring, advocating for local and state public policies that support healthy and equitable communities, developing grassroots leaders, and building the capacity of organizations to support racial equity.

7. The Fellowship sessions so far have focused on social determinants of health, equity and philanthropy as a change agent. How do you anticipate that those three themes will be reflected in the final recommendations?


The premise behind this approach is that, over the five sessions, all the content we’ve shared -- combined with the Fellows’ own expertise -- will result in informed recommendations that are immediately relevant for RMHF. For example, I expect that, by the last session, Fellows will understand the potential of a small to mid-size foundation, and the many tools that RMHF can deploy in addition to its funding, such as convening, research, and leadership development.  Fellows have already adopted an approach that is firmly grounded in the notion that there are many social, economic and historic factors that influence an individual’s health.

The puzzle that they turn to next is identifying the areas where RMHF is most likely to have impact, and then to present those finding in a compelling way to the RMHF board.  
Members of the Virginia Supportive Housing team are Jennifer Tiller, director of client programs; Allison Bogdanovic, executive director; and Toni Hill, registered nurse with the Intensive Community Treatment team.
The concept of supportive housing is simple, but the revolutionary results are winning believers among health providers, as well as state and federal agencies that fund homelessness programs.

“Supportive housing provides the foundation with which people can transform their lives,” said Allison Bogdanovic, executive director of Virginia Supportive Housing. “Across the world, it’s recognized as the way to end chronic homelessness.”

The nonprofit provides clients with affordable housing through supportive housing communities it develops and rehabilitates, and through rental subsidies. The housing is integrated with an array of services that can include medical and behavioral health, substance abuse treatment and vocational support.

Virginia Supportive Housing, which served more than 1,500 men and women in six localities across the Commonwealth last year, has a 97 percent success rate, defined by the percentage of individuals who maintain housing for more than one year.

In Richmond, Virginia Supportive Housing employs an Intensive Community Treatment (ICT) team to work closely with individuals who have a serious mental illness and a history of chronic homelessness.

The team consists of eight to 10 members, including a registered nurse whose position has been partially supported by a grant from Richmond Memorial Health Foundation.
The ICT team served 69 people last year and currently supports 50 men and women who typically have had no contact with the health care system other than frequent trips to emergency rooms.

“One of the main goals is not only to keep them stably housed, but also to keep them out of the hospital,” said Jennifer Tiller, director of client programs.

The ICT team connects clients with doctors and specialists, assists with transportation, and accompanies individuals to their appointments. Men and women served by the ICT team know that they can reach out for help whenever they are in crisis.

“It’s important to me to build rapport and trust,” said Toni Hill, the registered nurse on the team. “It’s a big relief for them to be able to pick up the phone and call and have someone to talk with, whatever they may be dealing with at that moment.”

Virginia Supportive Housing was a key partner in the work to functionally end veteran homelessness in Virginia, and it is part of a coordinated effort that is making significant progress in reducing the overall homeless population.

But uncertainty over federal funding for both health and housing initiatives puts supportive housing at the intersection of the budget debate in Washington, D.C.

“We’re at a time when we feel like we know what the solution is, and it’s really doable,” said Bogdanovic, “but not in the face of such [potential] drastic reductions."
The Drive to Make a Difference
This spring, a team from RMHF participated in the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s (AECF) Investing for Results leadership development program for six days of intensive training. The RMHF team joined other foundation teams based in Monterey County, Calif.; San Francisco, Calif.; Cleveland, Ohio; Tulsa, Okla.; and Findlay/Hancock County, Ohio, for two sessions held in April and June. 

Guided by AECF experts in results-based accountability, participants developed strategies and action plans for grantmaking, collaboration, and advancing racial equity and opportunity in their communities.   Members of the RMHF team used their time together to think strategically about the Foundation’s new focus on oral health. With the other foundation teams, RMHF staff explored strategies for integrating community engagement in grantmaking activities and discussed the importance of diversity on governing boards as a critical step in promoting and sustaining equity. 
Cynthia Newbille, advisor to the President on special projects, works on RMHF's action plan for community engagement.
A highlight of the Investing for Results program was an evening with Lisa Hamilton, Vice President of External Affairs for AECF. Hamilton oversees the foundation’s grants for federal and state policy advocacy, the KIDS COUNT initiative, and racial equity programs. She previously held senior leadership positions with UPS and the UPS Foundation, giving her a solid grounding in the value of data.

Hamilton emphasized the importance of having data to demonstrate results and to ensure consistency in messaging and strategies.

In a message sent to participants following her presentation, Hamilton shared a quote from author Rayya Elias: “The truth has legs; it always stands. When everything else in the room has blown up or dissolved away, the only thing left standing will always be the truth. Since that’s where you’re going to end up anyway, you might as well just start there.”

Hamilton added, “The data is a truth serum. All of the excuses and justifications just don’t hold up. Did you or didn’t you make a difference?”

To learn more, visit the Annie E. Casey Foundation  website.  
Check Out the New RMHF Website
RMHF's main website has a new look and a new user-friendly attitude. We hope you will take time to explore the expanded content, including pages with information about impact investment and Invest Health RVA. We would love to get your feedback. Please send any comments to Christina Nuckols, director of community relations, at cnuckols@rmhfoundation.org.
Richmond Chosen for Racial Healing Initiative
Unit and concord in multiethnic team, all hands together
Congratulations to the City of Richmond, one of 14 communities selected by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF) to implement the Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation initiative. The three-year, $1.7 million project is awarded to the city and Initiatives of Change Inc., which operates the Hope in the Cities program. 

Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation is an effort to heal the effects of racism in communities across the United States. Since it began in January 2016, WKKF has worked with more than 140 partners to address segregation and concentrated poverty in order to ensure equitable access to health, education, and jobs. Each community participating in the initiative is working with a group of partners that includes philanthropic leaders, elected officials, faith representatives, grassroots activists and young people.

This is the latest recognition by national funders of the hard work that is occurring in Richmond, and it is an incredible opportunity to ensure that progress continues in the important work of racial healing.
William Wilkins Reporting for Duty
The RMHF staff is excited to have William Wilkins join us for a summer internship through the Partnership for the Future program. William is a rising junior at Franklin Military Academy with an interest in chemistry, history and math. His vast collection of medals is a testament to his many academic awards and his talent as a tennis player for Armstrong High School.

William was a big help in archiving RMHF's online content, a key step in preparation for the launch of the new website this month. He is also visiting some of our nonprofit partners this summer to learn more about the work they do in the Richmond Region. Please say hello to William the next time you are visiting at RMHF.